R2D2 Mailboxes
R2D2 has been spotted around downtown Chicago. I’ll have to use the force if I’m to find him for myself.
Archive for March, 2007
The Reproducing Rhinos
The first cartoon he ever drew, and the last one, was of 2 rhinoceroses getting married. A regular human preacher in a church was saying to the congregation that anybody who knew any reason these 2 should not be joined together in holy matrimony should speak now or forever hold his peace.
…
“What’s funny about it?” said Jack incredulously. “Where’s your sense of humor? If somebody doesn’t stop the wedding, those 2 will mate and have a baby rhinoceros.”“Of course,” I said.
For Pete’s sake,” he said, “what could be uglier and dumber than a rhinoceros? Just because something can reproduce, that doesn’t mean it should reproduce.”
I pointed out that to a rhinoceros another rhinoceros was wonderful.
“That’s the point,” he said. “Every kind of animal thinks its own kind of animal is wonderful. So people getting married think they’re wonderful, and that they’re going to have a baby that’s wonderful, when actually they’re as ugly as rhinoceroses. Just because we think we’re so wonderful doesn’t mean we really are. We could be really terrible animals and just never admit it because it would hurt so much.”
- Kurt Vonnegut from Hocus Pocus
Are certain people rhinoceroses? Could I be a rhinoceros? If we could distinguish one animal from the rhinoceroses would that be hurtful or beneficial. Is it right to do so?
The Happiest Part of my Job
The happiest part of my work day usually takes place 20 minutes after I arrive in the office. It’s not when the traders say “Hey, Mers, good job today” or when I pick up my paycheck. The happiest part of my day is when the numbers at the beginning of the day match.
My job is just a repetitive system of checks and balances. During trading hours, I enter trades and give the traders a full list of their options position. Whatever they write down, I put it in the computer. Sometimes they make mistakes. Sometimes I make mistakes. But usually, we check each other throughout the day. If I’m wrong they’ll let me know. (Very vocally.) At the end of each day, I check everything again to be extra sure. After that, the system is out of my hands and into the hands of the clearing firm.
While I simply handle the theoretical position, the clearing firm handles the money side of every trade. They punch in the same trades I do and match them against the opposing clearing firm. Maybe a price will get mixed up or maybe the trader was never issued the trade. Just like I am, they too are prone to making mistakes and typos.
I have a theoretical soft value of the trader’s profit and loss for the previous day. Since the clearing firm handles the money, they have the hard value. When I check statements in the morning the two should match. When they do, it is bliss. Everything has cleared and the total options position is on target. Mers is happy and pats himself on the back. A job done well is it’s own reward.
Google Themes
I’ve been using Google personalized homepage since it first rolled out, and now I’m loving the new themes feature. I got off work today, logged into my gmail account, and noticed some new text on the personalized homepage. Hello, “Select theme!” How long have you been there? Not long, I see.
I like Google. They’ve been my only search engine since my early college days. I’ve always had them as my default homepage. So, it made sense to use the personalized page and add my own customizations. It’s now my web portal with the awesomeness of google search. (Though I usually type search into the Firefox bar. Maybe there is some web psychology behind that). Anyhoo, eventually, I did get tired of the white background. Firefox has a couple plugins called Greasemonkey and Stylish. They add some ways to change the look of the personalized page, but they were never that great. They usually changed a few text or background colors. On certain holidays, you’d see a new Google logo replace the original, but it was still the plain white google page.
The new themes add a lot more liveliness to the basic google page we’ve grown up on. There are currently 6 themes, but more have been proposed. They add a spiffy dynamic graphic to the top background and it will blend the colors to the rest of the page. The dynamic graphics will change accordingly to the conditions of your area code: day, night, cold, hot, season. Personally, I like the Tea House theme. Green is so calming and the Asian fox dude is cool.
I think the old guy is checking if he’s “Sure” or not. Apparently he isn’t, because no one wants to be around him. =P
EDIT:
After the first 24 hours of using the new themes feature, I was sure that I had seen all of the backgrounds for the “Tea house”. I thought it might be an neat idea if there was a special picture that would only load on a specific time and disappear the next second. Well, apparently there is: Themes Easter Egg. You need to reload the page at 3:14AM. (Pi Day!)
There is also a css edit to make the image appear without being on the 3:14AM time. It shouldn’t be long before people make their own backgrounds. (if they aren’t already)
